Category: Blockchain

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Investing

Linqto Announces Speakers For The Global Investment Conference 2020

Taking place on the 8th and the 9th of December, the conference will have a line-up of 48 speakers from all corners of various investment markets.

Linqto is one of the top digital trading platforms for private market securities The upcoming conference will aim to look over the way the world has changed in the past year – and how to change things for the better in 2021, whether by using new investment strategies, digging in for a possible future bull run and much more.

Australian Speakers And Hosts

Australia will be represented at the GIC taking place next week by the CEO of BTC Markets and the founder of Sapien Ventures.

BTC Markets is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Australia, and its CEO – Caroline Bower – will be present for a discussion with Steve Vallas about the importance of blockchain technology and its impact on multiple sectors worldwide.

Steve Vallas is the CEO of Blockchain Australia, an advocacy group working with both the public and private Australian sectors in order to further the development and adoption of blockchain technology.

The conference will be hosted by Victor Jiang and Karim Nurani. Karim Nurani –The Chief Strategy Officer at Linqto – has been a part of over 100 successful start-up ventures and is here to tell the story.

Victor Jiang is the executive chairman of Sapien Ventures, a firm specializing in venture capital operating out of Sydney, Melbourne, and Shanghai. With a large portfolio of companies under its wing and a range of options for potential investors, Sapien Ventures is a true heavy hitter in the investment market.

The Global Investment Conference can be joined free of charge via a zoom link that will be provided to you upon sign-up.

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Australia Blockchain Cryptocurrencies

Crypto.com Receives Australia License Allowing Them To Issue Crypto Debit Cards

A document mandatory for any financial institution in order to begin issuing crypto cards, Crypto.com has recently secured an Australian Financial Service License (ASFL).

All blockchain-based companies operating in certain areas of the Australian financial markets are required by law to possess an ASFL in order to comply with Australian anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism regulations.

“The guidance goes on to examine when tokens issued by an ICO could be a managed investment scheme, share, derivative, or non-cash payment facility under the Corporations Act. […]

 If a cryptoasset trading platform enables trading in tokens that are financial products, this may involve the operation of a financial market and a market license may be required.”

Crypto Cards On The Way

Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency trading website allowing users to buy and sell over 80 different cryptocurrencies. They also offer cryptocurrency cards in the UK, the USA, Singapore, and the European Union – and Australia seems to be next in line.

Even before the announcement of a card company acquisition, Crypto.com enabled transfers in AUD via PayID and BPAY.

In order to do so, they’ve acquired an Australian financial services company. Named The Card Group Pty Ltd, the financial firm specializes in prepaid cards, mobile, and wearable solutions.

The firm had also been vetted a priori by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board, virtually guaranteeing the receipt of an ASFL.

As a country interested in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the highly innovative technological solutions that stem from them since way before the crypto boom of 201

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Blockchain Crypto News Payments Ripple

Ripple Is Selling About A Third Of Their MoneyGram Stocks

Ripple Labs, Inc. has announced that they are selling 4 million of their MoneyGram shares, worth about 33% of their stock in the company.

Relationships Between The Two Companies Remains Unchanged

However, a spokesperson for Ripple Labs stated that this should not be taken as an indication that the two partner companies are having a falling out – rather, Ripple is trying to take advantage of the recent boom in MoneyGram stock price.

“Ripple is a proud partner in MoneyGram’s digital growth transformation. This is purely a judicious financial decision to realize some gains on Ripple’s MGI [MoneyGram International] investment and is in no way a reflection of the current state of our partnership.

We will remain a significant shareholder in MoneyGram following the sale – in just over a year, we’ve made incredible progress and look forward to continuing to work alongside Moneygram to transform cross-border payments.”

At the time this article was written, MoneyGram (MGI) stock is valued at USD 7.42, a massive leap from the USD 2.06 price tag they had back on the 2nd of January.

MoneyGram and Ripple Labs partnered up last year, making Ripple Labs’ xRapid technology available to MoneyGram, who were seeking to update their traditional money transfer MO. xRapid uses Ripple (XRP) to speed up payments and add an extra level of security to them by using Blockchain. The xRapid technology has since been rebranded and is now known as the ODL (On-Demand Liquidity) network.

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from the 27th of November, Ripple currently owns 8.6% equity in MoneyGram, equal to 6.24 million shares.

Ripple Labs also have the opportunity to buy 5.96 million MoneyGram shares under a warrant – however, seeing as Ripple Labs have already put up the aforementioned 4 million MGI shares for sales, this seems unlikely for the moment.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Industries

Australian Government Reviews Digital Transformation Strategy

In a published discussion paper titled Digital Transformation Strategy 2.0, the Australian Government laid out its progress since the project was announced 2 years ago – and noted the achievement of having been able to go above and beyond what was promised in the roadmap.

“In the past two years, we have steadily delivered against that roadmap. Practical initiatives which provide benefit to people and businesses in Australia include the Digital Newborn Enrolment service, automating tax reporting for business and the National Drought Map, where farmers can access information on drought conditions and relief services.”

Blockchain To Be At The Heart Of One Of The Top Three Digital Governments

Considered bold and even unprecedented to a certain degree, the 2020 iteration of the Digital Transformation Strategy Roadmap plans to make the Aussie government one of the top three digital governments by the time 2025 rolls around.

According to minister Stuart Robert, the transformation would greatly benefit from the public and private sectors working together in order to reach this goal on time.

“If we’re going to reap the benefits of digital transformation, for all Australians, we have to keep moving…we’re going to have to innovate and we’re going to have to get the private and the public sector together perhaps in ways they’ve not done before.”

Reiterating the need for rapid progress in the technology sector due to the nature of a year like 2020, the government goes on to state in the paper that from now on, different sectors of the government should cease to be isolated from one another.

Instead, all areas should be connected to each other – as far as privacy concerns and other healthy limitations will allow it. Using blockchain, all government sectors can benefit from fast and secure transfers of information.

The paper also encourages all interested parties to leave feedback on the project, just one of the many ways the plan seeks to invest in people over the next 5 years.

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Blockchain Europe Stablecoins

Libra Aiming To Launch In January

The Libra Association – based in Geneva, Switzerland and made up of 27 members – is expecting approval from Swiss financial authorities to launch their stablecoin project.

Backed By Facebook

Although the Libra Association is made up of 27 members, the most notorious member of the group is none other than Facebook – who revealed the project last year.

According to the Financial Times, The new stablecoin digital token Libra will be backed by the US Dollar and hopes to better the world of payments. It’s also reasonable to assume it will become a widely used payment option for advertisements run on Facebook, as well as Instagram.

Other noteworthy members of the Libra Association such as Visa have since ditched the project.

The Facebook-backed digital currency was meant to do more than it probably will when it launches, as financial regulators – especially those of European Union member states raised concerns about a stablecoin backed by one of the world’s largest corporations.

Fearing that Libra could erode financial stability across the globe, a torrent of backlash forced Facebook and its associates to scale back the project to its tentative current form.

Bruno Le Maire – the French Finance Minister – is one of the principal detractors of the project, arguing that Facebook has such a far-reaching influence all over the globe that allowing the cryptocurrency to be traded in the European Union would have serious consequences.

“All these concerns around libra are serious. So I want to say this with a lot of clarity: In these conditions, we cannot authorize the development of libra on European soil.”

It remains to be seen if Libra will now be allowed to launch within the European Union and worldwide in its scaled-back form. Even if it is, it will now have to compete with CBDCs being tentatively developed In China, Australia, the USA, and elsewhere.

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Australia Blockchain Industries

Australia and Singapore Will Collaborate On A Blockchain Project Targeting Trade Between The Two Countries

Both Australia and Singapore are frontrunners when it comes to blockchain technology – and they’ve now come together to work on improving their trading partnership through blockchain.

Digital Economy Agreement Paves The Way

The Australian Border Force (ABF) stated that the Australia-Singapore Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) led to this project, among other improvements to trade.

Michael Outram – the commissioner for the ABF – said the ABF looks forward to close collaboration with international partner agencies on mutual border modernization programs. As a result, we can expect to see more similar partnerships in the future.

“The ABF welcomes the opportunity to collaborate further with Singapore to improve cross-border trade between our countries. In addition to our efforts internationally, this initiative will incorporate paperless trading and secure, digital exchange of trade information as part of the future architecture and design of an Australian Trade Single Window”.

Many financial institutions will take part in the trial run, such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry,  the Australian Industry Group. Financial institutions in Singapore such as ANZ will also take part in the trial.

The trial will be run by the ABF in tandem with Singapore Customs and the Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). The trial run will attempt to integrate the ABF’s Intergovernmental Ledger (IGL) and the IMDA’s TradeTrust system for electronic trade documents.

If the trial run is successful, blockchain technology will be implemented in the Australia – Singapore trade relationship in order to reduce administrative costs – and to facilitate the transfer of relevant documents, as well as to certify the provenance of imported and exported goods across the supply chain.

This trial fits in nicely with the Australian Government’s recently announced Simplified Trade Agenda which aims to reform digital trade by streamlining compliance and documentation procedures.

The ABF will report their progress – and hopefully, their success – to the Supply Chain Working Group of the National Blockchain Roadmap.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Industries

ASX Partner VMWare Releases Blockchain Software For Commercial Use

VMWare, Inc., a company providing highly scalable software solutions for enterprises of any size , has taken the decision to launch their blockchain software available for purchase. This will allow businesses to increase the security of their data silos, allowing instant blockchain-powered data transfers.

Partnered With The ASX

Ever since the launch of its beta in 2018, the VMWare blockchain has connected with a steady stream of partners.

Among them is the ASX, who in the search for an upgrade to their aging infrastructure have turned to blockchain.

According to Dan Chesterman – the Chief Information Officer of ASX – Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) helps automate processes in a secure, accountable manner, giving it a leg up over competing technologies.

“The combination of VMware Blockchain and Digital Asset’s expertise in smart contracts and distributed ledger technology is the right partnership to help us transform and modernize Australia’s financial market infrastructure. DLT can help financial services firms transform data, preserve privacy and confidentiality, and remove manual processes that exist in the industry.”

The VMWare Blockchain’s Scalable Byzantine Fault Tolerance (SBFT) also works together with DAML in order to provide access to smart contracts ready to be used by booming enterprises and small-time businesses alike.

According to Yuval Rooz – the co-founder and CEO of Digital Asset, the company behind DAML – the smart contract tool developed by his team ensures privacy to the point where companies competing in the same field can collaborate on a distributed ledger.

Yet another partner of VMWare is none other than Accenture. David Treat, the head of Blockchain development at Accenture, also stated that blockchain allows companies to unlock the real potential of their data.

“By unlocking the real potential of data in our digital world, multiparty systems, supported by blockchain, are reshaping industries and transforming the way companies work together. It’s reshaping financial services, for example, by reimagining how transactions are executed, from payments to post-trade processing.”

After two years in post-beta development, VMWare’s blockchain solution seems poised to take the world by storm.

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Australia Blockchain Industries

Downer Group Trying Out Blockchain Improvements In The Construction Business

The Downer Group – a company offering a range of construction and engineering services  – is looking into the use of blockchain technology, hoping to improve their current modus operandi. Listed on the ASX and offering their services across Australia and New Zealand, the Downer Group is on the ASX 100 list and employs around 52,000 people.

Although blockchain has many uses in construction, the company has stated that they plan to use blockchain technology to keep a record of turnaround maintenance work – and to manage complex shutdowns.

Avoiding Mistakes And Misunderstandings

Over 130 shutdowns and turnarounds are performed by Downer every year, mostly in complex sites such as mines.

In industries where the slightest mistake can be fatal, there is no room for error – and blockchain can reduce those errors almost completely.

Blockchain has been used in Australian construction before – notably to create eco-friendly apartment complexes. However, the Downer Group states that this is the first use of blockchain in Australia for these specific areas of interest.

Pat Burke – the business executive general manager of Downer Group – stated that they are always looking for ways to improve customer experience. Among other innovative ideas, blockchain was singled out as a way to slice through previously opaque and confusing business practices, particularly those pertaining to unexpected costs and SLAs.

“A key factor in the successful management of large maintenance outages is having real-time information regarding asset condition, time, cost, and schedule that allows fully informed decision making during the actual execution of major and minor works.

“I believe blockchain technology will be used in many business-to-business transactions in the coming years.”

He added that by taking a leap of faith now, the Downer Group will be poised to offer innovative solutions to customers in a few years – while industry rivals play catch-up.

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Australia Blockchain Investing

ASX Goes Down Temporarily, Raising Concerns Regarding Trading Tech

After opening for trade on Monday, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) was forced to freeze trading for a full 20 minutes after a software issue affected the possibility of trading several securities – apparently all tied to a single order.

The issue prompted the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to express concern over the technical capabilities of the ASX’s aging system – and led them to a possible investigation into the ASX’s ability to comply with its license obligations.

Blockchain Solutions Waiting In The Wings

Luckily for Aussie investors, there are not one, but two solutions lined up to fix the issues stemming from the ASX’s aging CHESS trading systems.

Following an unexpected spike in trading volumes back in March of 2020, the ASX was forced to delay the launch of its DLT (Distributed Ledger Trading) platform.

Dominic Stevens – the CEO of ASX – stated that the trading spike heralded a possible tripling of the volume the new ASX system would be required to carry, forcing the ASX to rethink parts of their projected replacement system.

“Some, including an important back-office systems provider for a substantial part of the market, expressed a preference for an extra six to nine months, which we are including in our deliberations. With the volume explosion we saw in March, we’re now looking at plans to ultimately double or triple that original volume target, which will increase go-live system capacity.”

However, the National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX), have also been working hard to find a blockchain-based stock exchange solution – and at the beginning of October, they announced the creation of their new platform.

The Digital Exchange Subregister System (DESS) is yet another DLT trading system – developed in tandem with iSignthis – that is waiting for approval from the ASIC to help ease the load on the Australian stock market.

Whether the ASX adopts DESS or its own in-house solution, it is worth noting that both solutions are blockchain-based – hinting that the ASX, like many other Australian institutions, recognizes the viability of blockchain technology.

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Australia Blockchain Brisbane Gold

Australian Largest Asset Exchange, BTC Markets, is Listing Meld Gold on Its Platform

The largest Australian trading platform, BTC Markets, announced today on Twitter the listing of Meld Gold (MCAU). A Brisbane-based company that delivers and facilitates gold ownership through digital gold certificates.

BTC Markets will offer their investors AU$1 million of Meld Gold at spot prices. The trading officially starts at 11:00 AEDT on 17th November 2020.

Backed by Australian Gold

Meld is backed by recycled Australian gold, held in independent Australian vaults and refineries. The brand new company has partnered with retailers, industries, financial advisers, and several global brands to consolidate and connect their entire gold supply chain.

Meld allows businesses and investors can transact and sell their gold directly with bullion dealers — Including Brisbane-based Imperial Group, independent collective offering products and services specialising in precious metals.

Meld is also built on Algorand (ALGO), a technology that created the world’s first permissionless, point of sale (PoS) blockchain protocol and focuses on DeFi applications like Smart Contracts and Atomic Transfers.

In April, Meld announced its partnership with Algorand and Australian gold industries to add the supply chain of gold onto the blockchain technology. Usually, gold-backed tokens are supported by an amount of physical gold — under the issuer’s custody. 

However, in the Meld system, every token equals one gram of physical gold — not held by the issuer but the network companies, like Melbourne Mint. 

“Meld is developing an industry solution that interconnects the entire supply chain, creating efficiencies such as decreased costs, increased transaction speed, and greater liquidity.”

stated Michael Cotton, director of Meld Gold, for Decrypt.

“Meld is using blockchain technology to emulate and improve the actual gold market” stated Peter August, CEO of Melbourne Mint for Cointelegraph in April. August believes that Meld can shape the Australian gold industry with its new model.